Scientists who used AI to 'crack the code' of almost all proteins win Nobel Prize in chemistry

Source: CNN Science

Updated 8:08 AM EDT, Wed October 9, 2024


CNN — The 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry has been awarded to a trio of scientists who used artificial intelligence to “crack the code” of almost all known proteins, the “chemical tools of life.”

The Nobel Committee lauded David Baker, a US biochemist, for completing “the almost impossible feat of building entirely new kinds of proteins,” and Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, who work at Google DeepMind in London, for developing an AI model to predict proteins’ complex structures – a problem that had been unsolved for 50 years.

“The potential of their discoveries is enormous,” the committee said as the award was announced in Sweden on Wednesday. The prize, seen as the pinnacle of scientific achievement, carries a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million).

Proteins, a string of amino acid molecules, are the building blocks of life. They help form hair, skin and tissue cells; they read, copy and repair DNA; and they help carry oxygen in the blood. While proteins are built from only around 20 amino acids, these can be combined in almost endless ways, folding themselves into highly complex patterns in three-dimensional space.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/09/science/nobel-prize-chemistry-proteins-baker-hassabis-jumper-intl/index.html

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